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The Parables of Life . . . . . $ .50 

The Dwarf's Spell 50 

The Keen Joy of Living .^25 

The Wonder of His Gracious Words . .50 
The Sermon on the Mount .... .25 

The Man Who Missed Christmas . . .25 
How I Spent My Million . . . . . .50 

The Rejuvenation of Father Christmas . .50 



THE CHILDREN'S BREAD 



f^k^^^^k^!^^^^^^'^^>^^^^^^^^k^^^^^^^^^P^i^^^^^^ 



I 
I 
I 

i 



THE CHILDREN'S 
BREAD 

BY 

J. EDGAR I^ARK 

AUTHOR OF 



OF LIVING, THE MAN WHO MISSED 

CHRISTMAS," ETC. 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON CHICAGO 



I 

i^^ 



'z^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 




Copyright 1916 
By J. EDGAR PARK 



The Author donates the proceeds of this book to the 

Orphelinat des Armees 
which is fathering the fatherless Children of France 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 027747 



DEDICATED TO 

THE CHILDREN OF WEST NEWTON 
THE preacher's INSPIRATION 



PREFACE 



THE YOUNG MINISTER WAS A 
bachelor. He used to preach once 
a month to parents. He told them 
never to punish their children but to train 
them by love. He instructed them never 
to say ^' Don't'' to their children. He quoted 
Wordsworth's ^'Ode to Immortality" and 
upheld the original, natural and ineradicable 
goodness of the human species. Moreover he 
was much in earnest and waxed exceeding 
eloquent. 

In process of time he got married. It was 
noticed after his second child was born that 
the sermons to parents ceased. But he began 
to pray for them more. 

At the same time he seemed to be growing 
gradually more orthodox. One Sunday he 



PREFACE 

quoted the Westminster Confession of Faith 
with approval. Shortly after the birth of his 
fourth child he preached upon the wisdom and 
truth of the old doctrine of total depravity. 
He had come to see, he said, as he grew older, 
the everlasting power of many of the old 
doctrines. They had all been drawn from 
human experience; he felt sure that the 
original framers of the Confession were all 
fathers of large families. 

Time passed on and the minister became a 
grandfather. When his second grandchild 
was born he began to preach to children and 
for the first time in all those years the parents 
began to understand his sermons. 

(From the author's The Parables of Life,) 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Best Book in the World .... 1 

''Ask What I Shall Give Thee'' ... 5 

Heaven 11 

''Be Glad'' . IS 

How Far Can You Reach? . . . . 21 

"In the End" . . . . ... . 25 

"He That Hath Ears" . ..... 31 

The Sun 37 

Friends 41 

Apples 47 

" Twelve Years Old" 53 

"But" 59 

"His Hands" . 65 

Joy in Heaven 69 

"I Am the Way" . 73 

"Like a Tree" 77 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

'' The Wind Bloweth'' 81 

God ... \ , 87 

Verily I Say Unto You 93 

The Magic Ring 97 
/ Caused the Widow^s Heart to Sing for 

Joy . 101 

My Word 107 

Forty Days Ill 

The Word He Could Not Say ... 117 



THE BEST BOOK IN THE 
fFORLD 

IT IS FULL OF PICTURES — EVERY 
page has a picture — of birds, beasts, 
men, and of all kinds of adventures. 
Some pages are crammed full of pictures. 
There are more pictures in it than in any 
other book in the world. And the most 
curious thing is that not only are all these 
pictures colored, but they all move, they all 
are alive and walk about and act and run and 
play. Still more wonderful — the book is 
not merely full of pictures : it is full of music, 
the birds in it really sing, the people talk, the 
brooks babble over the stones and the wind 
rustles among the trees. It's the best book 
in the world. No, it is not the Bible I am 
talking about now. Everybody is reading 

[1] 



THE children's BREAD 

this book; everyone here is reading it. Some 
have only turned over a few pages and are 
just at the beginning of it; some have turned 
over a great number of pages and are quite 
near the end of it. 

What book is it? Can any of you guess? 
Well, now I can tell you the text, and then 
you'll see what the book is. The text is 
Revelation 20:12 — THE BOOK OF LIFE. 

Now you see what the book is. It is the 
book of your life. Every day is a page, every 
thing that happens is a picture, the things you 
remember are in the pages you have turned 
over, and see what the picture is you are 
looking at now. 

Who writes this book of your life? God 
writes part of it and you write part of it. 
Every morning God turns over a new page 
and fills in the outlines of the picture that is 

[2] 



THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD 

to go on that page, the things that are to 
happen to you on that day. Then He leaves 
it to you to finish and color the page. Oh! 
how you spoil it sometimes : don't you ? Some 
pages are ruined with a big blot of temper, 
or a lie that doesn't look right, or carelessness 
that spoils the picture, or unkindness that 
looks so ugly. So many a day all God's nice 
outlines are spoiled. 

But see, you have turned over a new page 
today. What are you going to write and 
paint on it? I think there are seven beau- 
tiful pages waiting for you this week. What 
will you write on them? God will put on 
them beautiful pictures of birds and flowers 
and love and happiness. When you come 
here next Sunday will all your seven nice 
pages be smudged with temper and meanness, 
and greediness and hate? 

[3] 



THE children's BREAD 

' No, I know they will not, I know that you 
will come with pages fair and beautiful, half 
God's work, half your work — Sunday's page, 
Monday's page, Tuesday's page, and so on, 
all beautiful; God's pictures colored by your 
laughter and love and happiness and help. 



[4] 



ASK PFHAT I SHALL 
GIVE THEE 

1 Kings 3: 5 

IT IS A WONDERFUL FAIRY TALE. 
God appeared to Solomon by night and 
said, " Ask what I shall give thee," and 
promised to give him whatever he asked for! 
Think of it! If an angel came to your bed 
tonight and said he would give you anything 
you wanted, what would you ask for? 

There once was a room and in the room 
there were three cribs, and there were three 
children sleeping in the three cribs. One 
night an angel came into the room. He 
touched the little girl who was sleeping in the 
first crib on the shoulder, and she woke up. 
Her eyes were all open wide when she saw 
[5] 



THE children's BREAD 

the great white angel standing by her bed, 
and the angel said: 

" Ask what I shall give thee! Til give you 
anything you want.'' 

So the little girl said, " Oh, I want a big 
doll, with brown hair and blue eyes and a big 
hat on, and a box full of all her clothes that 
you can put on and oif her." 

And the angel stooped down and kissed the 
little girl on the cheek. Then she put out 
her hand, and lo! sitting at the bottom of the 
crib was the very doll she wanted, with a 
big hat and with brown hair and blue eyes, 
and a big doll's trunk beside her full of all her 
clothes. And the little girl was so excited 
that she could hardly wait till morning to tell 
her mother all about it. 

But the angel went on to the next crib. 
There was a little boy sleeping there. The 

[6] 



ASK WHAT I SHALL GIVE 

angel touched him on the shoulder, and he 
woke up with big, wide-open eyes to see the 
great figure by his bed. And the angel 
said: 

"Ask what I shall give thee! Fll give you 
anything you want." 

Then the boy said, " Oh! I want a purse of 
money to do anything I like with." 

And the angel stooped and kissed him on 
the cheek, and then he put out his hand, and 
lo! at the bottom of his crib there was a purse 
just stuffed with money so that it was over- 
flowing upon the crib. 

Then the angel went on to the third crib, 
but there was no need to wake the little girl 
who was there for she was sitting up and 
looking at the angel with big, wide-open eyes. 
So the angel stooped down and kissed her on 
the cheek and said to her: 

[7] 



THE children's BREAD 

"Ask what I shall give thee! I'll give you 
anything you want/* 

Then the little girl said, "Oh! Fve been 
watching you and Fd like nothing better in 
the world than to be able to go about the way 
you are, giving people everything they want, 
and to look as happy and as beautiful as you.'' 

Then the angel stooped and kissed her on 
the cheek, and said, "Look!" Then the 
angel put out his hand so — and said again, 
"Look!" And lo! in the angel's hand there 
was the most beautiful golden wand, with a 
glittering jewel at the end. And the angel 
said, "This is the invisible wand that is able 
to give everyone what they want; see, I am 
giving it to you!" and the angel laid it down 
in the crib beside the little girl. 

Now the rest of the story is a little sad, 
because the doll said, "Mama, Mama," for 

[8] 



ASK WHAT I SHALL GIVE 

the first few days, and then somehow that 
part of her got broken, and then in a few 
weeks she was left out in the grass one night 
and all her clothes were spoiled by the rain, 
and one day after that her hair came off, and 
— well, the end of it all was that one Monday 
morning a few months afterwards, when the 
ashman came round to that house, he found 
on the top of the barrel he was to take away 
all that was left of that poor dolly, and the 
little girl inside was crying for another doll, 
and there was no angel to give it to her. 
And the little boy when he got up, went 
right down town and spent all his money on 
candy. He never had been able to get as 
much as he wanted before; so he ate it all up 
and made himself so sick that they had to 
come for him from the hospital, so of course 
that was the end of that. 

[9] 



THE children's 



But the little girl who had the wand! 
Wherever she went she touched people with 
the invisible wand and it gave them all they 
desired. Where people were quarrelling, when 
the little girl came into the room and touched 
them, they began to laugh at their own 
foolishness and they couldn't help it, and when 
people were poor and sick it made them happy 
and better. For the name of the wand was 
LOVE. And wherever the little girl went, 
she was the happiest and most liked person 
around, because she liked people. And the 
wand never wore out. Even when she was 
an old lady, years after the doll was buried 
miles deep in the dump, and the money spent 
and lost, she still had the wand; and everyone 
liked her and she liked everyone because of 
the wand called LOVE that nobody sees. 

[10] 



HE A FEN 

Genesis 28 : 17 



THERE WAS ONCE A LITTLE 
girl who asked her mother what 
heaven was Hke. Her mother told 
her that heaven was full of flowers and sun- 
shine and singing birds, and that in heaven 
everyone loved everyone else. 

The little girl looked around the room in 
which they were sitting. She looked first 
at the vase that was in the center of the table, 
and then she looked at the cage that was 
hanging in all the brightness of the window, 
and then she looked up into her mother's face 
and said: 

"Mother, I think there is a lot of heaven 
right in this room!'' 

That, you know, is the fun of being a Chris- 

[11] 



THE children's BREAD 

tian, it is seeing how much heaven you can 
bring into any room or see in it. 

I am going to make a prophecy about some- 
thing that is going to happen this week. It is 
going to happen in one of the houses in this 
town, on one of the days of this week. I see 
some older person come downstairs slowly— r- 1 
cannot see very distinctly whether it is a 
grandfather or a grandmother, or whether it 
is a father or mother or aunt, or who it is ; but 
it is some older person that has just come 
downstairs slowly, and is sitting down in a 
chair. 

Suddenly this person says, "Oh! There! 
I've gone and forgotten my glasses or my 
book (I can't just hear what it is), upstairs." 

Then I see this older person looking around. 
At first she thinks she will ask one of the 
children to go up and get it for her. But 

[12] 



HEAVEN 

she knows that the child will say with an 
awful whine : 

"Oh! I was just settling down to read this, 
and there! I can't go up again!'' 

So the older person is just starting to rise 
slowly to drag her way upstairs again, when I 
hear a voice, "I'll go. Aunty, or Grand- 
mother" (or whoever it is), and then I see a 
little piece of heaven coming into that room 
and the old grandmother thinks, "The children 
are so good to me." 

And when she wakes up next day in the 
morning the first thing she remembers is that 
something nice happened the day before. 
"What was it? Oh! yes, the children were 
so kind to me." For, you see, a little bit of 
heaven had come into the house. 

And what is the name of the boy or girl 
who is going to bring that little bit of heaven 

[13] 



THE children's BREAD 

into that home? I do not know, I cannot see 
it very clearly, but I think it is your name. 
Won't you try to make it your name? 

I went to see a mother once whose little 
Marjorie had gone away to the better land. 
Some one said: 

^^Well, I suppose Marjorie is in heaven 
now!" 

And the mother said, ^^Of course she is; 
wherever Marjorie was, was always heaven!" 

Wouldn't you like somebody to say that 

about you? "Wherever (naming your 

name) was, was always heaven!" 



[14] 



BE GLAD 

Isaiah 65 : 18 



IS NOT THAT A BEAUTIFUL TEXT 
— I wish you would all underline it in 
your own Bibles — "BE GLAD.'' You 
remember how Pollyanna's father liked all 
these rejoicing texts: "Rejoice greatly!'' and 
"Shout for joy!" and all such texts, and he 
counted them and found there were eight 
hundred of them. Suppose you try this after- 
noon to count them up in your Bible. See 
how many times the Bible tells you to be 
happy! 

It is easy enough to tell people to be 
happy, but how can you keep from getting 
into what we call the "dumps" once in a 
while 'i Well, I want you to notice, when you 
are going that way, what is the first part of 

[15] 



THE children's BREAD 

you that goes wrong. Think! It is your 
face, isn't it? Yes, that is it, your face begins 
to go wrong first — the corners of your mouth 
begin to turn down, your eyes to water, your 
lower jaw to go out into the shape of a whine, 
and you are all ready to be unhappy. 

So, you see, if you want to obey the text the 
first thing necessary is to look after your face. 
Don't let it run away with you ! I remember 
once in the big custom house on the dock in 
New York looking for a lost trunk. You 
know when a big steamer comes in there are 
thousands of trunks, and they put them in a 
tremendous shed which has big letters painted 
all down its sides, and your trunk is supposed 
to be under the first letter of your name. 
Mine was lost! It wasn't in its right place. 
I had looked all down the shed twice. Had it 
been left behind.'^ I was going around show- 

[16] 



BE GLAD 

ing by my face how unhappy I was about it. 
I met a commercial traveler who was looking 
for his, too. He looked at my face and said: 

"Whistle! It will make you feel a lot 
better and you'll find it just as soon!" 

I began to whistle, my unhappy face 
changed, I felt better and in a moment I saw 
a big J.E.P. on a trunk and found it was mine. 
Remember, the first thing when you feel your- 
self getting unhappy is to look after your 
face. Don't let it get fixed; whistle or laugh 
and perhaps the unhappy mood will pass. 

But it is not only how you look; it is also 
how you feel that helps you to obey this text. 

It is not what you have got that makes you 
happy, it is how you feel about it. I re- 
member once seeing a picture of a little boy 
looking through some great gilt iron railings 
and weeping; he had one of the most unhappy 

[17] 



THE CHILDREN'S BREAD 

faces I ever saw* He was the son and heir 
of one of the richest men in London and was 
looking out from his father's London estate. 
Two footmen were standing behind him with 
hands full of toys, and a nursemaid was on 
her knees with candy and comforts, but he 
was weeping as if his heart would break. 
Why.^ Because two little ragamuffins on the 
dirty street outside had got an old soap box 
and fixed some spools to it and were dragging 
each other through the mud in it. And my 
Lord Parklane wanted to get out and play 
with them. Remember, it is not what you 
have that makes you happy. It is the way 
you feel about it. 

The unhappiest face I know of in the world 
is the face of the hen who has just found a 
dainty scrap in the yard and picks it up and 
runs oif with it to find a place where she can 

[18] 



BE GLAD 

eat it, all by herself. She is afraid some 
other hen has seen it; she runs away, hearing 
them running after her; she is so unhappy 
lest she will have to share it with one of the 
others. 

But the happiest face in the world is the 
face of the mother bird who has found a fat 
worm and is flying home to give it to her 
little ones. 

You see then how to be happy — it lies in 
giving, not in getting. 

If you take care of your face, especially of 
the corners of your mouth, and if you share 
every good thing you have, your feelings may 
be left to take care of themselves. You will 
be happy most of the time. 



[19] 



HOfF FAR CAN YOU 

RE A cm 

HOW FAR CAN YOU REACH? 
With your hands? Only a few feet. 
See! I remember the first time I 
was able to reach up to the parlor-door handle, 
and how big and shiny and smooth it seemed, 
and how my little hands slipped around it 
when I tried to turn it. And even the longest- 
armed of us — how small a distance we can 
reach ! 

With your voice? If you have ever tried 
shouting to somebody away down in a field to 
come in for dinner, you know how short a 
distance your voice will reach. Of course the 
telephone helps in this way. I remember one 
stormy winter night I was staying in a little 
hotel, twenty miles from a railroad, in the 

[21] 



THE children's BREAD 

center of the Adirondack mountains. There 
were only lumbermen there. But the stage 
came up to the door very late, for there had 
been a good deal of shovelling to do to get 
through, and there was a man in it who got 
off and immediately went to the telephone. 
He called up a place in Canada and in a 
moment he was talking with his own home. 
I remember how homesick it made the rest 
of us feel as we heard him speak with each of 
his children in turn. Even the baby seemed 
to be held up to the telephone that he might 
speak to ^^papa'' away oif in the States. 

But even with the telephone, how short a 
distance you can reach with your voice! 
But there is a way you can reach to the end 
of the earth and to the end of the world. 

With your kindness? There once was a 
mean guide in the Adirondacks who, in order 

[22] 



HOW FAR CAN YOU REACH? 

to Spite some tourists, took some pickerel and 
put them into the lake. Now the pickerel 
have sharp teeth and they drive all the nice 
trout out of the water. So all over that 
district now there are no trout — only the 
fierce pickerel. The guide died years ago 
but still his meanness reaches thousands of 
people every year, who but for him would 
have their streams and lakes full of delicious 
trout. 

Every mean deed you do reaches away out 
and touches more people than you can touch 
with your hands, or reach with your voice. 
But it is the same with every kind deed. It, 
too, will reach away over the world and away 
down the centuries, and make people you 
never heard of glad and happy. 

"The common deeds of the common day 
Are ringing bells in the far away." 

[23] 



^^£^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^4^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



IN THE END 

Jeremiah 5:31 



SUPPOSING I HAD HERE A MAGIC 
mirror and supposing each of you 
children could come up here and look 
in it, and see in it what you will be like when 
you are old ladies and old gentlemen. Would 
it not be fun ? 

See! a white-haired old lady, living in a 
place all strange to you, in a funny house all 
different from anything you ever saw. And 
look! At the edge of the mirror you can see 
the neighbors who have come in to see her 
on her eightieth birthday. Listen to what 
they are saying! Do you hear? They are 
saying that she is the kindest person they have 
ever known, that she has helped everyone 
every way she could, never grumbled about 

[25] 



THE children's BREAD 

herself, and that everyone who ever knew 
her loved her. Who is the old lady? It is 
you. That is what you are going to be like 
when you are eighty. 

Look again, you boys, into the magic 
mirror. Here is a little, wizened-up old man 
walking about the streets of the town, and 
do you hear what everyone is saying about 
him? "Oh! if there is a dollar in it for him 
he'll help you, and if there isn't he won't." 
Even his wife and daughter have learned at 
meal times to leave the best of everything for 
him; otherwise there would be trouble. Who 
is the old man? I don't know, do you? I 
hope it isn't I. Don't you? 

"But there is not any magic mirror," you 
say. Oh, yes there is! There is a magic 
mirror which will tell pretty well just what you 
will be when you are eighty. What you are 

[26] 



IN THE END 

now, in your heart, is pretty much what you 
are going to be, if you don't watch out. 

When I was at high school I heard a boy 
sitting next me say, " I wish Jerry would stay 
at home and not come/' 

"Why?'' I said. 

"Oh," he answered, "he's selfish. Ask him 
to let you take his penknife and see if he isn't." 

I walked up to him and asked him for the 
loan of his penknife to sharpen my pencil, and 
he growled: 

"No, I've just got it sharpened, and I 
don't want it blunted." And he turned 
aside, took out his knife and began whittling 
a stick with it. 

I make the guess that wherever that man 
is today his wife and children and neighbors 
know that he is selfish and know better than 
to ask any favor of him. The magic mirror 

[27] 



THE children's BREAD 

in which we can see our future is ourselves. 
Your parents, your brothers and sisters, your 
teachers can make a pretty good guess 
already what kind of an old man or woman 
you will be. I confess, I like to prove other 
people wrong about me sometimes. I like 
to look into my own magic mirror myself and 
change things in time so as to make them 
come out better in the end. 

Supposing we all do it now. The worst 
sin in the world is to be mean. Now let each 
of us ask ourselves : ''Ami ever mean? Do I 
ever bother my mother when she's tired .^^ 
Do I ever make my teacher unhappy by not 
acting 'square' towards her and doing the 
best I can? Do I ever tell lies to get out of 
hard places easily ? Did I ever allow someone 
else to get the blame for something I had 
done?" 

[28] 



INTHEEND 

Well, if we arc mean now wc will be horrible 
when we are eighty. Let us all ask God to 
help us to change ourselves for the better now, 
so that when we are eighty, people will have 
good and not bad to say of us and to think 
about us. 

You know, while we are young, people say 
about us, "How like your father or mother 
you look!'' But when we get old we begin to 
look like ourselves. If you and I are unkind 
and mean in our minds now it will all come 
out upon our faces soon. But every kind 
thought you think before you are twenty 
comes out in your brow, or your smile, or your 
clear, kind eye long before you are seventy. 
Everything comes out "in the end." 



[29] 



HE THAT HATH EARS 

Mark 4 : 7 



LAST NIGHT THE GREAT COL- 
lege Hall at Wellesley College burned 
down and there were fire alarms all 
night in all the cities around here, and this 
morning lots of people got up and said, when 
they saw the news in the paper, "Well, it is 
funny I didn't hear the alarm!" Do you 
know why they didn't hear the alarm? Well, 
because they were asleep. 

Now it is a good thing to be asleep when 
you are asleep, but in Christ's time there were 
lots of people who were asleep when they were 
awake. And so there are now! So Jesus 
tried to impress upon people who were awake 
that those who had ears should hear with 
them. It is a good thing to train all your 

[31] 



THE children's BREAD 

sensds to be sharp. Go out into the woods 
some day and find out if you can hear there 
as much as an Indian could : How far off can 
you hear a footstep on dried leaves ? How 
many kinds of song birds can you hear? — Sit 
down and count. Have you ever noticed your 
dog pricking up his ears when everything 
seemed to you to be silent? That is because 
he hears something you do not. Do not be 
beaten by a dog. Practise using your ears; 
no matter what you become, it is going to be 
useful to you to have sharp hearing. The 
first reason then why people who have ears 
often do not hear is that they are asleep 
when they are awake, and are not listening. 

The second reason is that some people seem 
to have ears that run right through. There 
seems to be nothing in the head to stop the 
30und; so it goes in by one ear and right out 

[32] 



HE THAT HATH EARS 

by the other. You have heard your mother 
say to somebody, "Now don't touch that 
stove!'' And in a moment you have heard 
somebody scream, who has been burned. 
"You can go out if you promise not to get 
into the mud," I heard a mother say to her 
child, and in a few minutes the mother looked 
out of the window and saw the child covered 
with mud. What she had told her had gone 
in at one ear and out at the other. A child 
was asked lately what the meaning of the 
word "obey" is, and she said, "To obey is 
to 'member, and 'member, and 'member till 
you do it." 

The third reason why some people do not 
use their ears is because they can close them 
just as we can close our eyes, or our mouth. 
There is not a flap or anything that they close 
down over their ears, but all the same they 

[33] 



THE children's BREAD 

can close them just as well as if they had a 
cover for them. Fve heard a mother calling 
a child from the door, and I have seen the 
child busy playing shop 'round the corner, 
but the child never moved; and at last the 
mother had to come right out and find her. 
Why? Because the child had closed her ears; 
she didn't want to hear. 

A mother once played her children a trick. 
She went into the room where they were all 
playing and said, ^^I want someone to go 
upstairs for me to get a book." No one 
heard it; all the children went on playing. 
Then she said in the same tone of voice, 
''Would any of you children Hke some 
candy?" They all heard that. 

Don't be lazy and go about life half asleep, 
unable to hear anything. Don't be so careless 
that everything you hear goes right through 

[34] 



HE THAT HATH EARS 

your head and has to be repeated again. 
Don't be so selfish that you can pretend not 
to hear the things you do not want to take 
the trouble of doing. 

Above all, listen to a little voice in your own 
heart that says, "You ought to do that!" 
''You ought not to do that!" "Mama told 
you not to do it!" That is what we call 
conscience; it is the voice of God in your 
heart. Be sure you Hsten to that! 



[35] 



THE SUN 

Ecclesiastes 11:7 



IN MANY OLD PICTURES WHICH I 
have seen, the Sun is represented as 
smiHng. He is a fat-faced old gentle- 
man with a broad smile upon his face, re- 
garding the world with the greatest satis- 
faction. And in all languages the word they 
use for fields upon which the Sun is shining 
is the word " smiling '^ — they say ^^ smiling 
fields.'' 

Why is it, do you think, that the Sun is 
always thought of as happy and smiling? I 
think it is because he is the only thing in the 
universe that always gives and never gets. 
He is always giving light and warmth and 
cheer; so he is always happy, especially as he 
never seems to get anything in return. The 

[37] 



THE children's BREAD 

Moon looks glum because she gets all her light 
from the Sun and grudges the little she has to 
give back again to us. But the Sun is so glad 
to give that sometimes, in August, he actually 
gives us more than we need. 

There is a big boys' school in New England 
which has a seal which always seems to' me 
very beautiful. On it you see flowers spring- 
ing, and bees around the hive enjoying the 
flowers, and the big happy Sun shining; indeed 
they all look so happy on the seal — the 
flowers and the bees and the Sun. And what 
do you think the motto of the school is that is 
written below on this seal? It is two Latin 
words, "Non Sibi/^ which mean "Not for 
Themselves." That is why they are all so 
happy — because they are living "not for 
themselves." The flowers are giving color 
and fragrance to everyone that passes, the 

[38] 



THE SUN 

bees are gathering honey for their little ones 
(and perhaps for some slices of your bread), the 
Sun is shining for the flowers and the bees and 
everybody, and they are all happy because 
it is "not for themselves.'' 

There once was a good man called Saint 
Francis who loved all things, and used to call 
the sun "My brother, the Sun!" That is a 
good way to feel about him — as our big 
brother who teaches us every day that the 
only way to be happy is to give happiness to 
others. 



[39] 



FRIENDS 

John 15 : 14 



r^^^^-^^'^^^^T^'^^ 



I SUPPOSE IF YOU GATHERED IN 
one room all the wisest and best people 
who had ever lived, and asked them 
what they thought the best thing in life is, 
I suppose they would give a unanimous vote 
that the best thing in the world is friends. 

A friend is someone you like. It is curious 
how everyone likes some things more than 
others. In the same home you may have 
two children born the same day, and one may 
like sweet things and the other sour. One 
cries for candy, and the other for pickles. 
Why? I do not suppose that anyone is wise 
enough to answer that question. It is still 
stranger as you grow older. You will find some 
people whom you will like, the very first time 

[41] 



THE children's 



you see them, better than you like most other 
people. The very first day I went to school 
another little boy came up and sat down 
beside me in the class, and we spoke to one 
another a little, and although we hardly ever 
have been nearer each other than 3,000 miles 
since our school days in that old school, we 
have been friends ever since and hardly a 
week passes without letters reaching each of 
us, with foreign stamps upon them, from the 
other. Why is it that we can all find in the 
world people like that whom we Hke better 
than we like most other people.'^ One great 
writer thinks it is because we have been 
friends before. Up in heaven where the 
babies wait to be born, he thinks we have met 
before and arranged to try to come down 
to the earth at the same time. Whether this 
is so or not, I do not know. But I do think 

[42] 



FRIENDS 

it is one of the strangest things in life how 
you meet people whom you seem to have 
known and liked for a lifetime somewhere. 

But a friend is not only a person you like, 
but also a person to whom you are loyal. 
Some weeks ago, I overheard one girl say to 
another, ^'You know she thinks Fm her 
friend!'' and then she told that girl some 
ridiculous thing about the other and they 
both giggled and laughed at it. Now that 
is one of the worst sins there is — disloyalty — • 
to pretend to be a person's friend and then 
go and retail confidences like that. To be a 
friend you must be loyal to your friend no 
matter what it costs you. 

I once saw a picture called by this title, 
"When did you last see your father ? " It was 
about the times when the Puritans were 
fighting the CavaHers in England. Some 

[43] 



THE children's BREAD 

Puritans had taken the home of one of 
the Cavaliers in order that they might kill the 
father of the house. The picture shows the 
parlor of the house. The stern, cruel soldiers 
have searched everywhere for the father and 
have not found him. Now they have got 
the little boy of the house upon a footstool, 
and these cruel men with clenched fists are 
asking him, "When did you last see your 
father?" You can see what will happen if 
he refuses to answer. They will twist his 
arms till the bones crack, they will use the 
thumb-screw till the blood flows. But look 
at the little boy standing before them with 
his mouth tightly closed! Is he going to 
tell? No! His father is his friend. He is 
going to be loyal to him, even if he has 
to die for it at the hands of these cruel 
men. 

[44] 



FRIENDS 

Now if you dare to like anyone in life, 
you must take the risk of being loyal to him, 
even if it means not telling many things you 
know the others would love to know, even 
if it means taking ridicule for your friend's 
sake, even if it means in some burning boat 
giving up your place in the lifeboat to your 
unconscious friend. Are you worthy to be a 
friend of anyone, do you think? Have you 
the stuff of loyalty in you? 

If you have, you have a chance of having 
the best thing in life, a friend to whom 
perhaps in long after years, when you both 
are white-headed, you will be saying, "Do 
you remember years ago those children's 
sermons we used to hear? There was one 
about friendship — -I remember as if it were 
yesterday — and see how many years we 
have been friends!'' And then you will count 

[45] 



THE children's BREAD 

Up all the scores of years of your happy 
friendship together. 

I want you all to be sure of one great 
Friend, and that is God, for if you are a friend 
of His, you will be a better friend to all your 
other friends. Every morning and evening 
remember to kneel down and talk with that 
great, good, unseen Friend of yours, and then 
be loyal to Him all the time. 



[46] 



APPLES 

" A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in 
pictures of silver" — Proverbs 25 : 11 



HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED HOW 
gnarled the branches of the apple- 
tree are? If you have ever had 
to spHt apple-wood you know how hard it is to 
split, because it is all twists and turns. And 
when you look at an apple-tree against the 
sky, you see that its arms are all stretched 
out as if protesting against some age-long 
wrong. Many of them seem as if they were 
trying to get down upon their knees and 
stretch forth their scraggy arms beseeching 
for justice. I sometimes think the reason is 
because everybody blames them for all the 
trouble that has come into the world, and says 

[47] 



THE children's BREAD 

that it was an apple that Eve gave to Adam, 
and that it is a piece of the apple that has 
stuck as Adam's apple in every man's throat, 
until the present day. 

Now of course this is all unjust, because the 
Bible never says it was an apple at all, and I 
do not blame the apple-tree for being annoyed 
about it. In fact, in the Bible and all through 
the books of the East the apple is one of the 
most dearly-loved fruits. 

It is rather curious to know why they like 
the apple in the East. If you or I should be 
so fortunate as to get an apple, the first thing 
we would think of would be to eat it. But in 
the East, I have been told by travellers, they 
love the apple for its delicious perfume. 
When visiting in a house in the East some- 
times they hand you an apple just to hold in 
your hand and enjoy its fragrance. The 

[48] 



first thing a patient asks a doctor when he is 
getting better often is, "May I have an apple, 
just to smell?'' So in the Song of Solomon 
in the Bible the highest praise of someone 
who was clean and sweet was "Thy breath 
is like apples.'' 

Now our text probably means this, "A 
word fitly spoken is like golden apples in 
filigree silver baskets." That is probably 
what the word "pictures" meant — baskets of 
delicate silver lacework. 

Our author could think of nothing more 
pretty in its harmony of color than yellow- 
gold apples in silver baskets of delicate work- 
manship. For him they were the right thing 
in the right place. There was their sweet 
smell, there was their beautiful color, and 
there was the contrast between the gold of the 
apple and the silver of the basket. He liked 

[49] 



THE children's BREAD 

all these things. He said it was as beautiful 
as the power to say the right thing at the 
right time. 

Can you say the right thing at the right 
time? The people of other nations are better 
at it than we are. In Ireland an old beggar 
woman asked a gentleman to give her some- 
thing to buy her some food. He refused and 
looked annoyed, at which the old lady said, 
"Child of Grace, it's not for the sake of a 
penny you and me'd fall out!'' 

In Scotland a little girl was asked to show 
a visitor out, and as she opened the door she 
said, "An' when you're goin', it's aye comin' 
I wish you were!" 

In this country any little courteous words 
we do say are said so shortly and gruffly that 
it seems as if they didn't mean anything. We 
say "Welcome," when we are thanked and 

[50] 



APPLES 

we say ^^ Forget it!'' when people speak of 
something we have done for them, but it 
sometimes sounds just a form of words with 
no heart in it. It is fine to be able to say the 
right word, the comforting word, the humorous 
word in an awkward situation that will 
immediately relieve the tension. How can 
we all learn to do so? Not by practising fine 
words — no — but by trying always to think 
kindly. If only in your heart you are "think- 
ing kindly" of other people, then the words of 
your mouth will be "like apples of gold in 
pictures of silver.'' 



[51] 



TWELVE YEARS OLD 

Luke 2 : 42 



THE PARENTS OF JESUS USED 
to go off on an excursion to Jeru- 
salem every year. I suppose they 
left the little boy Jesus alone at home with 
some relative or in the house of some neighbor. 
I can imagine how wistful the little boy 
would look as he hung around the house 
seeing things being packed and preparations 
being made for this interesting journey. At 
last would come the day when they would 
depart, the little pony or mule ready at the 
door, Joseph and Mary prepared for the long 
journey. I can imagine how the little boy 
Jesus would stand waving his hand in ^'good- 
bye'' to the little company as they wended 
their way out of the village and disappeared 

[53] 



THE CHILDREN'S BREAD 

behind the hill. I can imagine how Jesus* 
eyes would be full of lonely tears as he saw 
his mother turn round for the last time at the 
bend in the road and look back to see her 
little son still standing waving his hand in 
the place where she had left him. 

Now there came a year and Jesus saw his 
parents prepare as usual for their pilgrimage. 
Although he had seen them go so often, yet, 
I imagine, he had never got used to it, and 
the same lonely, wistful feeling always came 
over him as he saw the preparations for 
their departure. Day passed after day, and 
now all things were almost ready for the 
start, when on the morning of that very day, 
he heard Joseph's voice calling '^ Jesus! Jesus!'' 
and, running up, he heard the wonderful 
news that he was going to Jerusalem, too. 
Think how happy he would be. No longer 

[54] 



TWELVE YEARS OLD 

to be left at home! He was twelve years old 
and a man now, who could go with his parents 
to the great feast at Jerusalem. What a 
happy party started out that year from the 
village! Jesus was eager to see the wide 
world, and we can imagine how proud Mary 
was of her son, now grown to be a man, for 
the people then all thought that when a boy 
was twelve, he ceased to be little and became 
big, for then he ceased wasting his time play- 
ing all the day and began to learn a trade. 
At twelve years old the boy became a man. 

Now what is the difference between a boy 
and a man.^ I asked a small boy of my 
acquaintance this question, and this was his 
answer: ''When you hit a boy, he cries; 
when you hit a man, he doesn't.'' Now that 
is a pretty good way of putting it. A man 
doesn't whine and cry about every little thing 

[55] 



THE children's BREAD 

that happens that doesn't suit him. In Japan 
when a boy cries his mother laughs at him, 
and says, "What will you do when your arm 
is torn off in battle?'' And in some places 
they send their boys out in the dark squares 
at night just to make them brave in the dark, 
fearing nothing. 

"What do you do when the brambles tear 
your feet?" said a man to a barefooted boy 
in the country once. "Doesn't it hurt you? 
What do you do?" 

"Ah," was the answer, "I just let it hurt!" 
That boy was a man. 

Another sign of having grown from being 
a boy and having become a man is that one 
can behave well in church and meetings when 
parents and teachers are not there to keep 
order. The baby boy cannot do this. You 
have noticed how he wriggles and whispers, 

[56] 



TWELVE YEARS OLD 

and tells jokes to his neighbors and is not able 
to listen or sit still. He is still in the basinette 
stage, when you have to be strapped in to be 
kept still. But you will all, also, have noticed 
how about twelve years of age, or thereabouts, 
the baby turns into a man who behaves in 
church — listens, sings, prays. 

In many tribes of men twelve is the age 
when the boy takes upon him his rights and 
duties as a member of the church of his people. 
It was so in the case of Jesus. He went up to 
Jerusalem to worship there as a member of 
his father's church. So for us it is the time 
when we should think of taking our stand in 
life for Jesus and coming out before the world 
on his side. When Jesus was twelve he went 
up to make his confession in Jerusalem. Why 
not you ? Why not come out before the world 
then and say, "I am a Christian!" 

[57] 



BUT 

Jonah 1 : 3 



THE BIBLE TELLS US AN IN^ 
teresting story about a man called 
Jonah. Jonah was a man who 
could not do what he was told. God told 
him to go to Nineveh, but Jonah went to 
Tarshish, and the result was that he got into 
trouble. Why? Because he had disobeyed. 
It is curious how few people have the power 
to do what they are told to do. There are all 
kinds of prize competitions in the newspapers 
these days, and printed plainly are the con- 
ditions which you must obey — you must 
write on one side of the paper only, you must 
not write your name on the sheet, and so on. 
Do you know that in any large competition 
there are hundreds of people disqualified 

[59] 



THE children's BREAD 

simply because they cannot obey? They send 
in their papers written on both sides or disobey 
the rules in some other way. In most elections 
hundreds of votes are thrown out for the 
same reason; in one city in Massachusetts a 
few days ago, where some of the best-educated 
Americans live, a whole election came ' out 
wrong because nearly everybody had voted 
for five people when they were plainly told 
on the ballot to vote for only four. 

You have noticed that it is just the same 
in your home. Your mother says, as you run 
downstairs, "Please do not slam the door 
when you go out!" Now listen! Ah! you 
know what happens without listening. 

The thing that is so extraordinary is that 
some boys and girls actually seem to think 
that they are particularly bright because they 
are not able to obey. In school, for instance, 

[60] 



BUT 

the boy who is not man enough to do what he 
is told to do sometimes grins and swaggers 
as if he were doing something brave and bold. 
He is simply breaking the rules of the game, 
that is all. Life is just like baseball — there 
are certain rules and if you break the rules 
you spoil the game, that is all. I once saw 
30,000 people all hissing one man. It was at 
a football game in Edinburgh. He had 
broken the rules when he thought nobody 
saw him. But they did see him, and he had 
to walk off the field hissed by the thousands 
who had seen him. Now at school one of 
the rules is that you obey. The child that 
has not backbone enough to do so should be 
ashamed of himself. 

It is that "but" which came in when Jonah 
was told to do things that spoils so many 
people's lives. You are told to do a thing, 

[61] 



THE children's BREAD 



"but'' you do not want to do it, or you forget 
to do it, or you did not understand, or some- 
body else was not going to do it — we can all 
make excuses in plenty. The heart of the 
matter is we were not strong enough to obey. 

All this practice of obeying others is practice 
towards the great art of life — the power of 
being able to obey yourself. Can you obey 
yourself.'^ Do you ever say to yourself, 
"Now I won't do that again," and then find 
yourself in a few hours doing it again? Have 
you ever made a good resolution and then not 
kept it.f^ Have you ever said, "Now this 
will be absolutely my last piece of candy," and 
then taken two or three more afterward .f* 
Then you are not able even to obey yourself, 
and you cannot do very much in life till you 
get that power. 

A few days ago a big auto truck was passing 
[62] 



BUT 

down Washington Street, when something 
suddenly went wrong with its steering-gear, 
and it went wabbling all over the place, 
landing at last inside a big store window, all 
smashed up itself, and having injured many 
people and much property. That is like a 
life that has not gained the power to obey 
itself; it is a derelict, injuring others and itself. 
Will you try this week to get that ^^but'' 
out of your life, which spoils it so.^ Will you 
try to obey parents and teachers immediately 
so that you may get the will-practice of being 
able some day, when it is perhaps a matter 
of life and death, to obey yourself? 



[63] 



HIS HANDS 

Luke 24 : 40 



SOME PEOPLE THINK THEY CAN 
tell a great deal about your life from 
your hands. I think all they can do 
is to guess at the kind of person you have been, 
and the kind of things you have been doing. 
I used to teach a class of big working men to 
write. Now it was easy to tell from the way 
a man tried to hold a pen that he had never 
had one in his hands before. They all held 
their pens as if they were crowbars. You 
could tell pretty well as you looked over 
the hands writing upon the papers what 
the men's trades were, just as you can tell 
the hand of a seamstress by the mark made by 
the thread which she breaks over her finger. 

[65] 



THE children's BREAD 

In one of the big packing houses in Chicago, 
I am told, they tell what kind of a character 
you have been by your hand. When a boy 
comes to ask for a job, they ask him some 
questions, and then say, ^^Show me your 
hand!'' and if the tips of the fingers are yellow, 
the boy misses his chance. They do' not 
want any cigarette smokers there. 

So you could have told what kind of life 
our Lord had lived by his hands had He shown 
them to you. They were not grasping, greedy 
hands, they were rather such hands as had 
been placed many a night upon the brow of 
the fevered and the sick — cool and tender. 
They were hands of compassion, filled with 
sympathetic touch. A great surgeon once 
said, "A real surgeon must have eyes on 
the ends of his fingers." So Jesus had heal- 
ing love and sympathy in his hands. When 

[66] 



HISHANDS 

he laid them on the weary brow they gave 
health and strength. 

Jesus' hands as he showed them were pierced 
by cruel wounds, which told of pain and suf- 
fering borne for us — such honorable wounds 
as many of you have seen borne by some of 
the veterans of our Civil War. The scars on 
Jesus' hands are a sign of the love he bears 
to us all. 

"We may not know, we cannot tell 
What pains he had to bear, 
But we believe it was for us 
He hung and suffered there." 

When we see him at last, even if we have not 
courage to look up at his blessed face, we shall 
know him by his hands. 



[67] 



JOY IN HEAVEN 

Luke 15 : 7 



^^^ 



THE CHOIRS OF HEAVEN HAD 
surpassed themselves. The won- 
drous song was over, and the angels 
were conscious of the presence of our Lord 
passing among them. ''Never in my earthly 
days/' said one, ''did I dream of such exquisite 
music. Surely this is the grandest in the 
universe.'' 

Our Lord, passing by, turned unto him and 
said: "Dost thou think so.^ Follow me!" 

Descending to earth, he found himself walk- 
ing in a forest path by the side of the Lord. 
The sunset glowed among the trees. He was 
about to speak when our Lord stood still and 
raising his hand said, "Listen!" All around 
the woods were filled with the evening thanks- 

[69] 



THE children's BREAD 

giving songs of the birds ere they went to sleep. 
Darkness came slowly as they stood listening, 
till at length the last song ceased and all was 
quiet again. Then the angel said: ^'It is true, 
O Lord. This song is even more glorious." 

But they were moving on now towards a 
light that shone through the darkness of the 
trees, and soon were standing outside a wood- 
cutter's hut. Inside a mother was putting 
her little child to bed. They were singing 
together their evening prayer to the tune 
"St. Sylvester'': 

"Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me; 
Bless thy little lamb tonight; 
Through the darkness be thou near me; 
Watch my sleep till morning light." 

When the song was over the angel whispered, 
"The sweetest music!" but as the mother 
opened wide the window and extinguished the 

[70] 



JOY IN HEAVEN 

light, leaving her little child in slumber, our 
Lord entered in; and all night long Jesus 
and the angel stood, the one at the head and 
the other at the foot of the little bed. 

With the first ray of morning our Lord bent 
down and kissed the child, smiling in its sleep, 
then signing to the angel to follow, went forth 
to a city far off where in a bare room a young 
man had been kneeling all night by the side 
of his bed. His prayer could be heard now 
mingled with sobs, "Father I have sinned 
against heaven and before thee, ... I will 
arise and go to my father!'' 

Then Jesus laid his hand on the young 
man's head and said, looking at the angel: 
"This is the most glorious music. Go upward 
and tell the choirs of heaven to sing." 

Then the angel departed, leaving Jesus and 
the young man alone. 

[71] 



'^<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



I AM THE WA Y 

John 14 : 6 



THE PARTS OF SPEECH ONCE 
met together to discuss which was 
the greatest. The first personal 
pronoun was appointed judge. The nouns, 
sitting in their thrones — solid, substantial, 
vast — asserted: "We are the only things; 
everything else is mere idea; we are the only 
reality; we are the greatest." 

The adjectives laughed at this and cried in 
scorn: ^^Nay, what are the nouns without 
us \ A noun without shape or color or size 
is ridiculous; we give quahty to reality; we 
are the greatest.'^ 

At which the verbs rushed in, in great haste, 
followed by their attendants, shouting as they 
ran around: "We do things. Nouns are 

[ 73 ] 



THE children's BREAD 

dead. The great thing in life is to act. 
Therefore we are the greatest.'' Their little 
fairy attendants, who guided all their actions, 
and kept the strenuous, undisciplined verbs 
from all kinds of confusion and violence, merely 
smiled at this and said nothing, for the inter- 
jections were asserting that they were the 
only parts of speech that could talk, and the 
prepositions and conjunctions (in uniform like 
little messenger boys) were chattering away 
to the effect that they were essential to all 
business arrangements and therefore were 
the greatest. 

After waiting for the confusion to subside, 
the first personal pronoun said: "The greatest 
thing in life is not to have things, nor even 
to have good things. It is not to do things, 
much less to talk or diplomatically to arrange 
things. The thing of most importance in 

[74] 



iP:.i.i!S:<S^:5=ii>ff:id-^:-*>ffi*-^:.i^^:i> 



I AM THE WAY 

life is the way you do things. I therefore call 
upon the little attendants I see with the verbs 
— the adverbs — to receive the prize. God 
must be served by adverbs." 

Then the adverbs came up to be crowned 
as the most important parts of speech. The 
rest of the company at first was inclined to be 
angry, but could not remain so long, for the 
adverbs came and took the prize in such a 
pleasant way, and acted so nicely about it 
afterwards. 



[75] 



LIKE A TREE 

Psalms 1 : 3 



THE BIBLE IS FULL OF TREES. 
It begins with the Tree of Life in 
Genesis and it ends with the Tree 
of Life in Revelation. When the Bible wishes 
to express great joy and jubilation, it speaks 
of the way the trees wave their branches in a 
high wind, and says, "All the trees of the field 
shall clap their hands." Have you ever seen 
the trees of the field clapping their hands for 
the joy of the wind like that? When the 
Bible wishes to express something majestic 
and tall and strong, it says it is like the cedars 
of Lebanon, which were great trees whose 
roots were coiled around the eternal rocks and 
whose heads were high up amid the storms of 
heaven. When the Bible wishes to make you 



THE children's BREAD 

feel God's care, it points to the stork's nest 
in the fir tree, or the shade of the fig tree 
leaves beside your home. It was among the 
trees of Eden that Adam and Eve first lost 
touch with God, and it was among the 
trees of Gethsemane that Jesus, in suffering 
for sin, brought the whole human race back 
to God again. The Bible story is full of trees. 
One thing was a continual astonishment to 
the people of the Old Testament, and that 
was the way in which a tree planted beside a 
river could keep green all through the fiercest 
heat. They thought that was a good picture 
of what we should call a Christian. Just 
as a tree could keep fresh and green and 
beautiful in the midst of parching hot weather, 
so the Christian ought to be able to keep 
sweet and courteous and pure in the midst of 
irritation, interruption and temptation, 

[78] 



TREE 

You know how there are some days when 
nothing seems to happen just right, when 
everything everybody does seems out of tune 
and in poor taste — when, as our parents 
tell us, we seem to have got out of the wrong 
side of our beds. This is especially true in 
the morning. It is generally harder to be a 
Christian at breakfast than at any other time. 
How few of us are like the late Principal 
Rainy, whose little granddaughter said, 
*^ Grandpapa must go to heaven every night, 
because he is always so happy in the morning P' 

But the tree in the fierce heat of the sun is 
calm and green and beautiful. Why? Be- 
cause its roots are deep down beside the 
streams of waters in the cool earth. No 
matter how dusty and hot the air is it cannot 
make it fade away or shrivel up. 

That is the best picture of one whose heart 
[79] 



THE children's BREAD 

is filled with kind and beautiful thoughts, 
whose life is in touch with the life of Jesus. 

Every morning before you dare to begin 
the day, get into touch with Jesus, get the 
roots of your life deep down towards the 
springs of living waters. Come down to 
breakfast with the verse of some great text 
you have read in your Bible singing in your 
soul, having spent a few moments in quietness 
while you knelt by your bed and remembered 
all you were bound to be for Jesus' sake 
that day. 



[80] 



THE friND BLOfTETH 

John 3 : 8 

GOD'S PRESENCE IN THE WORLD 
is like the wind. God is every- 
where, yet everywhere invisible. The 
presence of God can be felt everywhere in the 
world, the voice of God can be heard in your 
heart, but ^^no man hath seen God at any 
time.'' You remember what Robert Louis 
Stevenson says about the wind : — 

I saw the diflFerent things you did, 
But always you yourself you hid, 
I felt you push, I heard you call, 
I could not see yourself at all — 
O Wind, a-blowing all day long, 
O Wind, that sings so loud a song! 

So Jesus in the Gospel of St. John says that 
God is in the world like this mysterious wind, 

[81] 



THE children's BREAD 

working and living everywhere, but nowhere 
seen. 

But the presence of God in the world is also 
like the wind because it is health-giving, 
everywhere removing pestilence, disease and 
death. The wind drives the dead leaves away, 
and in all close and unhealthy parts of^ the 
city it blows with new life and strength. 

These are the two things I want you to 
remember about God. First, He is an in- 
visible Spirit who is everywhere like the 
wind. And second. He is the great purifying 
Spirit of cleanness and grace. Whenever 
the spirit of God comes into your heart, then 
all mean and unkind and impure thoughts 
and desires are blown away. It matters not 
where you are, God is always there and you 
can pray to Him. When you feel bad thoughts 
and angry desires in your heart, begin to 

[82] 



THE WIND BLOWETH 

think of some of the great prayers of the 
Bible and offer them up in your mind — 
prayers Hke these: "Create in me a clean 
heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within 
me!" "Cleanse me from my sin!'' "Come, 
Lord Jesus! Let me not be overcome of evil 
but overcome evil with good!" 

When you have with earnestness and sin- 
cerity offered up such prayers as these, then 
you will know what is meant by saying that 
the spirit of God is like the cleansing wind, 
for when you look back on what happened 
you will find that somehow your train of 
thought was turned from the morbid and 
anxious line, that new thoughts of cheer and 
brightness sprang out in your mind, and that 
you were saved from sin. 

Try it! The next time you are tempted to 
think unkind or wayward thoughts, stop, 

[83] 



THE children's BREAD 

offer up earnestly some such prayer as these 
and think it over word by word as you pray it. 
In an hour, when you look back, you will find 
that something must have happened, for you 
were somehow diverted from the evil line of 
thinking and given happy thoughts. 

Just as the warm spring wind blows over 
the frozen land, bringing back the song of 
birds and buds and summer again, so the 
spirit of God is ever ready to fill your life with 
beauty and song and gladness if you only will 
open the door of your heart to the spirit as it 
blows from God's heaven all around the closed 
windows of our hearts. 

God's spirit is full of happy thoughts that 
want someone to think them. Won't you 
open the door of your mind at least once a 
day and let Him suggest them to you 1 

One day after a long winter the first warm 
[84] 



THE WIND BLOWETH 

morning came. A little girl opened wide the 
window of her room that morning, and as she 
heard the song of returning birds and saw the 
glistening buds and felt the new warmth in the 
air, she pushed back the draperies around her 
w^indow and stretching out both her hands to 
the wind said, "Come in. Spring!'' 

Won't you open the window of your heart 
at least once every day this week, and say, 
"Come into my heart, winds of God! Spirit 
of Jesus, come into my life!" 



[85] 



GOD 

Romans 8 : 39 



A MAN WHO WAS IN TROUBLE 
once said, '^Oh, I wish God would 
only do something! God never does 
anything. We cannot see Him or touch Him 
or hear Him. Why doesn't He do something 
once in awhile?'' 

Suppose we try the experiment now and see 
if there really is a God. Do you think w^e can 
feel God, or hear God, or see God ? Let us 
try just now. 

First you must put your hand on your left 
side — there, you see. Now be quite still 
for a moment. What do you feel? You feel 
— do you not? — a regular insistent tapping 
and throbbing which goes on all the time. 
Who does that? Do you? Certainly you 

[87] 



THE children's BREAD 

do not do it, because it goes on regularly with- 
out missing a beat all the time you are asleep. 
All the hours when you do not think of it at 
all it still goes on — when you are playing and 
running and jumping, when you are thinking 
of the game, still this beating must go on 
regularly. If it stopped for a moment you 
would die. Who does look after it.'^ Who 
is it that is tapping, tapping there so faithfully 
and regularly.^ It is God. That is God's 
hand you feel. I mean that literally, that is 
God's hand which moves continually in your 
heart. So you can feel God. That is God's 
care. 

But can you hear God.^ I saw a poor 
immigrant woman in an electric car the other 
day. She had two small children and a baby 
to look after, and she had one of those brick- 
red telescopic cases packed full of things and 

[88] 



GOD 

with a broad strap round it. She looked very 
poor and miserable and not at all attractive. 
There was a very trim and neat conductor 
standing at the end of the car telling people 
to step lively and trying to have them move 
out quickly. This poor woman wanted to 
get out, but it was so hard to get both the 
children and the baby and the big case into 
two weak hands. She was trying to do it 
when the conductor saw her. What did he 
do.f^ He came forward and said to her 
courteously, as if he were asking a favor of a 
queen, ^^Let me help you, Ma'am." Then 
he took the big case and not only carried it 
out of the car but right on to the sidewalk, 
and was back again in time to lift the older 
child down from the step. Now who told 
him to do that.^ Somebody must have told 
him to do it, because there are lots of people 

[89] 



THE CHILDREN'S BREAD 

who would never have done it. I think he 
heard the voice of God in his heart. I think 
everyone can hear God's voice in his heart 
telHng him to do nice things Hke that. ^^ Don't 
be ashamed ! " it says. " Do it ! " '' Don't do 
it!" it says another time. ^'Remember what 
your mother said!" So I think we cari all 
hear God. It is His voice that is called 
conscience. 

But what about seeing God ! Can anyone 
ever see God.'^ Ah, that is the hardest thing 
to do. It is easy to feel God's care, it is 
necessary to hear God's voice, but only a few 
people have seen God. They say it is the 
greatest and most wonderful experience in 
the world to see God. How can one see God.^ 
Well, there is in North Conway, in New 
Hampshire, a great cliff, that is seen clearly 
from the village, called White Horse Ledge. 

[90] 



You have not been very long In North Con- 
way before someone asks you if you have 
seen the white horse on the Ledge. Some- 
where amid the mottled white and brown and 
gray of that Ledge there is a likeness of a 
white horse. Now the curious thing is that 
some people see it after a few minutes; some 
people take days to see it, and then suddenly 
as they are looking somewhere else, out of the 
corner of their eye, they will suddenly see 
the white horse start out of the Ledge. Some 
people never can see it — they have not been 
looking the right way or in the right place or 
at the right angle; so they never see it. Now 
it is just the same way with God. Some 
people see God in this world after a few years, 
some people take a long, long time to be able 
to see God, some people never are able to see 
God. Jesus said that the thing that made you 

[91] 



THE children's BREAD 

able to see God was having a pure heart. 
As long as you are selfish or mean you cannot 
see God. But generous, kind people, some 
of them, come at last to be able to see God in 
the eyes of their friends, in the sunset glow, 
in the face of the sad and needy soul and in 
many other places. I think that if we go on 
feeling God's care, and obeying His voice, 
some day we too may have this greatest and 
best of experiences and see God. 



[92] 






VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, 

THEY HAVE THEIR 

REfFARD 



Matt. 6 : S 



THE TEXT MEANS, THEY HAVE 
got the prize. But Jesus thinks 
there are some prizes not worth 
getting. In a town in Scotland recently there 
were two children who had attended School 
for five years without missing a single day, or 
even being tardy once. The School Board 
heard about it and they said that they would 
give a silver watch and chain to the boy or 
girl who had a perfect record for six years. 
So John and Jean both made up their minds 
to get the prize. One day towards the end 
of the sixth year John was running to school 

[93] 



THE children's BREAD 

when he heard some one tap on the window 
of the house he was passing. The window 
opened and the widow, Mrs. MacMurray, who 
lived in the house called out: ^'My little girl 
has been taken terribly sick and she is just 
lying at death's door now, and I have no one 
to send for the doctor; run quickly for me 
and get him!" But John looked at the town 
clock and saw it would make him late for 
school, so he pretended he did not hear and 
ran on. In a few minutes Jean came running 
along, and Mrs. MacMurray called out the 
same thing to her. Jean called back, "O I'm 
sorry! All right, Mrs. MacMurray, I'll get 
him." Then she turned back and ran the 
half mile to the doctor's house and brought 
him back with her. But this made her 
nearly three-quarters of an hour late for 
school. 

[94] 



VERILYI SAY UNTO YOU 

At the last day when the prizes were given 
out at school, all the town was there to see who 
got the best places. At the end the president 
of the School Board said he was now going to 
give the special prize of a silver watch and 
chain which had been offered to all children 
who had not been either absent or tardy for 
six years. He said that there were two who 
might have got the prize but one of them 
had been late once, so she could not get it. 
Then John's name was called out to get the 
watch and chain. 

As they were all going out the girl who sat 
next to Jean said to her, "Never you mind, 
you saved Marjorie MacMurray's life." John 
wears the silver chain all across his vest, but 
no one looks at it except himself. Verily I 
say unto you, he has his reward. 

[95] 



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^r-^^*-- 



THE MAGIC RING 



ONCE GOD WANTED TO GIVE 
his children a present. He leaned 
down from heaven and said, "I am 
going to give each one of you a magic ring 
which I myself have made for you. Put this 
ring on your forefinger/' He said, "and you 
can do anything you want to do." 

As his children held up their hands, God 
sHpped on the forefinger of each the magic 
ring. The ring was of pure gold. There was 
a great diamond upon it so large and brilliant 
that it filled all the place where it was with 
light. The ring all around was divided into 
sections, each filled with diflterent kinds of 
precious stones : amethysts as blue as a baby's 
eyes, emeralds as green as the depths of the 

[97] 



THE children's BREAD 

sea; as you got round towards the back of 
the ring the stones got darker, there were 
rubies glowing red Hke the robin's breast, and 
at the very back set among sparkHng black 
diamonds with their myriad twinkling was a 
wondrous moonstone showing a different 
shape in every light. As you looked > closer 
into the ring you found that all the spaces 
between the stones were set with thousands of 
little seed-pearls arranged in order due as 
though ticking off the section when you turned 
the ring around. 

And with this ring you could do anything 
you desired. One young man let his hand 
droop down and the ring fell off into the mud 
and dust and was lost. One little girl with 
the ring upon her finger touched her room 
which was all untidy, and lo! the dolls raised 
themselves off the floor and set themselves in 

[98] 



their chairs, the playthings gathered them- 
selves together into their places, the bits of 
paper were picked up, the dust disappeared, 
and the room was tidy again. One boy with 
the ring on his hand touched the garden and 
lo ! the weeds were pulled up, the beds 
raked and watered and the garden smiling 
with content. One man put on the ring and 
as his pen touched paper lo! a story was 
written that made all men smile. One touched 
those around in the home and made everyone 
sad, another touched those in the village and 
made everyone, even the angels in heaven, to 
rejoice. 

Now I wonder if any of you know what this 
magic ring is which God makes and gives to 
His children and with which you can do any- 
thing you like. The text will tell you. The 
text is in Psalms 118 : 24, "^'This is the day 

[99] 



THE children's BREAD 

which the Lord hath made!'' The magic 
ring is a new day. God bends down and puts 
it on your finger every morning Ht by the 
diamond rays of the sun, the blue sky, the 
green earth, the golden glow of sunset, 
the myriad stars, the lady moon. Won't you 
see what you can do with it today ? 



[100] 



/ CAUSED THE WIDOWS 

HEART TO SING 

FOR JOY 

Job 29: 13 



THERE ONCE WERE TWO 
candles which were made beside 
one another in the same factory. 
One was sent to a big city in America, the 
other drifted away till it came to a distant 
part of China. 

The first candle was sent to the house of a 
rich lady who was going to have a party. 
She had the whole house lit from top to bottom 
with electric lights, but she thought a candle 
would look cute upon the piano when the 
great singer was singing. So she lit it and 
put it on the piano in the great ball-room 

[101] 



THE children's BREAD 

filled with thousands of electric lights. When 
the great singer was singing a waiter near by 
opened a door and the draft blew the candle 
out. What happened do you think ^ NOTH- 
ING HAPPENED. Nobody noticed that 
the poor little candle had blown out because 
the room was so dazzHng with electric lights. 

The other candle came at last into the 
possession of a poor Chinaman who lived at 
crossroads in a little house all by itself. It 
was the only candle he had and one of his 
dearest possessions, so he wrapped it up care- 
fully and put it safely away. One night he 
was awakened by someone knocking at his 
door. He got up and put his head out of the 
window. 

A voice said: "I am a doctor, I am trying 
to find the way to the house of a little boy 
who is dying of diphtheria, but the candle in 

[ 102 ] 



I CAUSED THE WIDOw's HEART 

my lantern has burned out and it Is so dark I 
cannot see the road. Unless I can get another 
candle, the little boy must die.^' 

Then the Chinaman said: "I have a candle 
I will give you, it is the only one within miles, 
but I have it.'^ So he went up and got the 
candle and it burned in the missionary's 
lantern and showed him his way, and the life 
of the little boy was saved. And his mother, 
who was a widow, was glad. 

Now which candle would you rather have 
been ^ 

There were two dolls made by the same 
man, each with the same blue eyes, the same 
curly fair hair, the same pink bows on its 
shoes. And one went on the Christmas Tree 
of a little girl who had more than twenty 
other presents. When it was taken off the 
tree she looked at it a moment and then, 

[103] 



THE children's BREAD 

because she had so many nicer dollies, she 
forgot about it, and it got mixed up with the 
boxes and the excelsior and was brushed up 
in a bundle and put out with the ash-barrel, 
and in the morning the ashman came and 
emptied it with a lot of other rubbish on the 
dump. 

In the same city there was another little 
girl whose father was dead and whose mother 
was an invalid. She hung up her stocking 
on Christmas Eve and prayed that there might 
be something in it when she awoke. But her 
father was dead, her mother was sick in bed 
in the next room, and there was no one to tell 
Santa Claus about her. The little girl went 
to sleep at nine o'clock, and the clock struck 
ten and then eleven, and still the stocking 
hung empty at the foot of the bed; the clock 
struck twelve, and still there was nothing in 

[104] 



I CAUSED THEWIDOW'S HEART 

it; the moon looked in at the window as the 
clock struck one, then came two and three 
and four, and still the stocking was empty; 
the clock struck five and six and the window 
began to grow light, and still there was nothing 
in that poor stocking. Suddenly there was 
a step upon the stair. It was the doctor who 
had come to see the sick mother before he 
went away for Christmas Day. He stepped 
lightly into the mother's room and then 
peeped into the little girFs room. She was 
still sleeping and at the foot of her bed hung 
the forlorn little empty stocking. He tiptoed 
over to the bed, took a bundle out of the 
pocket of his fur coat and slipped it into the 
stocking. 

In half an hour the little girl awoke and 
before she opened her eyes she remembered 
it was Christmas; she was afraid to open her 

[ 105 ] 



THE CHILDREN'S BREAD 

eyes for fear there should not be anything in 
the stocking. She made up her mind that 
there would be nothing in it and then she 
peeked. Yes, there was the stocking — but 
THERE WAS, there was something in it, 
wonder of wonders ! and she was over at it in 
a minute and was bringing in to her delighted 
mother her only doll, the prettiest doll in all 
the world. 

Which doll would you rather have been? 



[106] 



<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



MY fFORD 

Isaiah 55 :11 



I SOMETIMES IMAGINE THAT 
there is a little invisible fairy who 
hovers around us human beings. This 
little fairy holds a pair of scales in her hand. 
The beam is a sunbeam. She holds it by a 
diamond ring through which the sunbeam 
runs. The chains are the gossamer of spiders' 
webs, and the scale-pans are hazel-nut shells. 
These scales she uses for weighing our 
words to see how much they are worth. 

A mother once had two boys. She said to 
one boy, "Will you promise me not to go on 
the ice without asking me first?" The first 
boy said, "Yes, mother.'' And the angel 
caught the words as he said them and weighed 
them, and they weighed nothing. For the 

[ 107 ] 



THE children's BREAD 

boy went off, and when he got among a crowd 
who were going on the ice he did not care about 
the word he had given his mother, but he 
went on too. 

The mother said to the second boy, "Will 
you promise me not to go on the ice without 
asking me first?" And the second boy said, 
"Yes, mother." And the angel caught the 
words as he said them, and they weighed more 
than all the weights she could put into the 
other scale. So she did as only angels can do 
and put the whole earth into the other scale, 
and the second boy's word weighed more than 
the whole world. Because whatever hap- 
pened he would keep the word he had given 
to his mother. 

Years afterwards the mother was old and 
gray and was going to leave her sons, who were 
now both grown men. She called them to 

[ 108 ] 



MY WORD 

her bedside to say good-bye to them. She 
said, ^' There is only one thing I want you 
to promise to do for me after I am gone." 

The first son in tears said, ^^Tll promise to 
do it, mother." But she looked at him and 
murmured half to herself, ^^I am so sorry, 
but I cannot trust you." 

Then she turned to the second son and said, 
''Will you promise to do it for me?" And he 
answered, "Yes, mother!" She said, ''Now 
I am satisfied," and was gone from them. 

You see, the first boy had gone on in life 
just as he had started, and his word was worth 
nothing. Would you not have hated to be 
that first man, whom his own mother could 
not trust? 

Well, your word, my boy and girl, is worth 
just as much as you make it worth. If you 
are constantly trampling on it yourself, then 

[109] 



THE children's BREAD 

no one else thinks it is worth anything. But 
if you believe that it is "Better to die, than 
ever to lie''; if you scorn to take the easy 
lie-door out of any hard awkward situation; 
if you always tell the truth and take the con- 
sequences like a true man or woman, then as 
you grow up, people will think more of one 
word of yours than of a thousand words of 
one who tells lies. 



[110] 



FORTY DAYS 

Mark 1 : 13 



FORTY DAYS IS A LONG TIME, 
and you can do a great deal in it. 
There is a time called Lent which is 
just forty days long. It is kept partly in 
memory of forty days which our Savior spent 
alone among the wild beasts in the wilderness, 
praying and conquering temptation. We all 
try to keep it in this way, we make a special 
effort to kill out something bad that is in us 
and bring in some new good thing into our 
lives. 

Boys, when they are going to try to beat in 
a football game, go for a time to what they 
call a training table to get their bodies into 
the best condition, they eat only certain 

[111] 



THE children's BREAD 

things, and they take especial care of them- 
selves in every way. 

Now Lent is a training table for the soul. 
I want to tell you three ways you can keep it. 

(1) Give up something you like every day. 
One family I know do not have any candy 
in the house at all during Lent. But what 
is the good of giving up things you like, they 
are surely few enough of them in life with- 
out deliberately giving them up, are there 
not.^ It is to strengthen your will. One girl 
I know not only gives up eating candy during 
Lent, but she does this : — She buys a box of 
candy the first day of Lent, and she puts it 
on her table right where she can see it, and she 
leaves it there all the forty days without 
touching it. You see, it is to strengthen her 
will. She likes candy very much, there is 
the box, there is nothing to prevent her open- 

[112] 



FORTY DAYS 

ing it and taking some except her promise. 
That makes her will strong, perhaps forty 
times as strong at the end of Lent as it was 
at the beginning. 

(2) Do something that others will Hke every 
day. There was once in a city a little girl 
who was an invalid and had to lie on a couch 
at a window high up in a big city building all 
day. She had only one thing to look forward 
to, and that was that a gentleman every day 
in summer brought her a big bunch of 
flowers. This was how she enjoyed herself. 
She could just look out of her window away 
down to the pavement below. Whenever 
she saw some poor lonely soul coming along 
she would drop a flower. The poor man or 
woman or child would suddenly find on the 
pavement in front of them a beautiful, fresh, 
sweet flower. They would pick it up and 

[ 113 ] 



THE children's BREAD 

smell it and lcx)k all around and see nobody, 
and go on so much happier and with new 
gladness in their souls, knowing nothing of the 
two little eyes away up the block looking 
down upon them with infinite glee. Try in 
your way to do forty such things in Lent, to 
drop a little flower of kindness in the way of 
somebody every day. 

(3) Take a minute just to remember God 
every day. It may be in your own room, it 
may be on your way to school — it does not 
matter where — just stop thinking about other 
things for a moment, and say, "O God, I 
know you are beside me, I want to make the 
best of today," then stop a moment quietly 
to feel that God is with you, and ask Him to 
help you in the things you want to do that 
day. 

Life is like a climb up a big mountain, 
[114] 



FORTY DAYS 

We start as little babies lying on our backs in 
the valley, crying for the moon and smiling at 
the shadows. We end, if we succeed, on the 
mountain top, masters of the world, friends 
of God. Now on the way up you come to a 
cliff which is very steep called Lent. In it 
there are cut forty steps. Won't you try to 
go up one every day? Won't you try to 
strengthen your will forty times, to do forty 
good deeds, to remember God in forty prayers ? 
Then at the end of Lent perhaps you will be 
forty times as strong, and forty times as loving 
and forty times as good as you are today. 



[115] 



THE fFORD HE COULD NOT 

SAY 

A Thanksgiving Story 



'^^^^^^^ 



THERE WAS ONCE A MAN WHO 
was a pretty good man. A great 
many people were kind to him, 
but he was always in a great hurry and simply 
took what they did for him without saying 
much about it. His parents gave him a good 
home which he took as a matter of course. 
His teachers tried their best to help him to 
learn the things that would make him get on, 
but he never said a word to them about all 
their trouble. So he went on in life and when 
he died he went up to the gate of heaven. 

There an angel gave him a golden key and 
added these words, 

[117] 



THE children's BREAD 

"Take the key! 
Say the word! 
And enter in!'' 

He took the key out of the angeFs hand in 
his usual way and stuck it into the keyhole. 
But he could not open the door. He tried 
and tried and tried and tried, but it was no 
use, the door would not open, till at last the 
angel had to ask him to give the key back and 
stand aside to let the others who were waiting 
pass in. The angel made him go away back 
to wait. Everyone of the others took the key 
from the angel, said something to her and 
then opened the door and passed in. But every 
time he tried it he failed. 

At last after waiting and trying many times, 
he got down on his knees to the angel and 
besought her to tell him what the magic word 
was which gave all the rest entrance into 

[118] 



THE WORD HE COULD NOT SAY 

heaven. The angel smiled as she said, "What 
will you say if I tell you?'' He was in such 
fear of being shut out of heaven altogether, 
that he forgot himself and said, "Why I 
should thank you." "That is the word!'' 
said the angel, smiling, "You have forgotten 
to say it all through life!" "I see it now," 
he said, "it will take all eternity to say it to 
all who have been good to me!" Then the 
angel handed him the key. As he took it he 
said, "Thank you," and when he put it in the 
lock the door opened and he heard all heaven 
ringing with the songs of Thanksgiving. 

" children, children dear! my heart 
For better lore would seldom yearn^ 
Could I but teach the hundredth part 
Of what from you I learn.^^ 

[119] 



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